A new Scientific Reports study presents a unified model of early brain growth from mid-pregnancy to the first weeks after birth, mapping tissue-specific trajectories using the same dataset to connect prenatal and postnatal scans into a continuous growth curve.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge outline how mid-pregnancy to early postnatal development forms a continuous trajectory, linking prenatal and postnatal imaging to chart brain growth.

The study identifies when sex differences emerge but does not establish causality; prenatal hormones, particularly a testosterone surge in mid-gestation, are suspected contributors.

Implications suggest early brain growth trajectories could help explain sex differences in neurodevelopmental conditions like autism, which relate to distinct growth rates.

Males show higher brain volumes at all ages and faster age-related increases in absolute brain volume, with region-specific gray matter growth accelerated in males in areas such as the right inferior temporal gyrus and left parietal lobes.

Sex differences in early brain growth are detectable by mid-pregnancy, with male brains exhibiting larger gains in overall volume during early development.

Across the brain, males generally experience greater age-related brain volume increases, with differences largely linear rather than different growth shapes across regions.

Subcortical gray matter structures peak in growth earlier than cortical gray matter, suggesting basic-function networks mature ahead of higher-order cognition networks.

Key figures and affiliations include Yumnah Khan leading the study at the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge, with collaborators from Cambridge and the Autism Research Centre.

The study is titled Mapping brain growth and sex differences across prenatal to postnatal development, with collaboration from the University of Cambridge and associated researchers.

The authors call for longitudinal studies following individuals from pregnancy through childhood to validate findings and explore implications for neurodevelopmental conditions with sex-biased prevalence.

A large perinatal neuroimaging study tracks brain growth from the prenatal period through early postnatal life using continuous MRI data from the Developing Human Connectome Project, compiling 798 scans from 699 individuals (263 prenatal, the rest neonatal) with substantial longitudinal data.